Men Still Earn Vastly More Than Women

Employed Koreans earn W3.29 million a month on average, but men make 1.7 times more money than women and staff in big businesses 1.8 times more than in small firms, according to a survey of 1,500 salaried workers by Statistics Korea on Thursday (US$1=W1,143).

The median income amounts to only W2.41 million a month, but the average salary is W880,000 higher the medium income because of a small number of ultra-high earners.

Baek Woong-ki at the state-run Korea Development Institute said, "As technology develops rapidly, managers and skilled workers reap most of the profits, while unskilled workers are left out".

A growing number of highly educated women marry men with lower academic credentials. Statistics Korea data on 2 million couples who married between 1995 and 2015 show that the proportion of women marrying less educated men rose from 7.5 percent of all couples to 11.6 percent over the decade.

In 2015, 235,085 couples got married and 27,173 were a woman with a university degree marrying a high-school graduates or a woman with a high school diploma marrying a man who did not finish high school.

Two-thirds of married women wanted to have only a small wedding, but only half of them managed to overcome social pressure to go the traditional route, according to a report on Monday.

The Korea Institute of Child Care and Education polled 1,173 married women nationwide and found that 67 percent of respondents wanted to have a small wedding. But 49.1 percent, said their weddings were rather grand affairs in the end.

Asked why, 22.9 percent cited opposition from their families. Some 19.1 percent said they thought they should keep up with the Joneses, and 16.6 percent admitted they wanted more gift money from more guests.

Girls Generations Yoona was voted one of the most beautiful Asian celebrities in China, and for this one reason.

Chinese online community portal Baidu recently opened a poll for users to vote on who they thought were Asias most beautiful female celebrities. Girls Generations Yoona came in second, after Chinese actress Gao Yuanyuan, followed by Fan Bingbing, Song Hye Kyo, and T-ARAs Jiyeon.